First Major Poll following "debate night" - Trump holding with (only) 19%; Carly Fiorina (17th ranked before the debates) moving into 5th place with 10%, and Rand Paul finishing near the bottom.

Trump Still Leads in Iowa; Fiorina on Fire; Paul Tanking

Raleigh, N.C. –

PPP's newest Iowa poll finds Donald Trump leading the Republican field in the state even after a weekend of controversy. He's at 19% to 12% for Ben Carson and Scott Walker, 11% for Jeb Bush, 10% for  Carly Fiorina, 9% for Ted Cruz, and 6% for Mike Huckabee and Marco Rubio.

The other 9 candidates are all clustered between 3% and having no support at all (George  Pataki)- John Kasich and Rand Paul are at 3%, Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum at 2%, Chris Christie at 1%, and Jim Gilmore, Lindsey Graham, and Pataki all have less than 1%.

“Donald Trump’s public fight with Fox News might hurt him in the long run,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “But for the time being he continues to lead the pack.”

PPP last polled Iowa in April and at that time Trump had a 40/40 favorability rating with GOP voters. On this poll his favorability is 46/40, not substantially better than it four months ago. That suggests Trump's favorability could be back on the way down after peaking sometime in the last few weeks.

But at any rate Trump does have the advantage with pretty much every segment of the GOP electorate- he's up with Evangelicals, men, women, voters in every age group, moderates,  voters who are most concerned with having the candidate who is most conservative on the issues, and voters who are most concerned about having a candidate who can win the general election.

The biggest winner coming out of the debate looks to be Carly Fiorina. Her favorability rating is now 56/15, compared to 30/15 when we polled Iowa in April. She was such a nonfactor the last time we polled that we didn't even bother to include her in the horse race question but now she's at 10% and in the top 5. Fiorina also ties with Walker as the most frequent 2nd choice of GOP voters at 11%.

Besides Fiorina the only other candidate who seems to have any momentum is Carson.   He was at 5% in April and has seen his support go up by 5 points to its new 12%  standing. Carson is also the most popular candidate in the field, with a 69/10 favorability rating. That's up from a 44/15 spread in April.

The biggest loser in the poll is Rand Paul. He now has a negative favorability rating at 31/45.  That gives him the worst numbers of anyone in the field, outdistancing even Chris Christy.